Residential play worker jobs

Ready for Your Next Leadership Challenge?

Do you have experience working with children and young people in residential care? Are you passionate about helping young people overcome adversity and achieve positive outcomes? Do you enjoy supporting colleagues, leading by example, and making a lasting difference?

If so, we have an exciting opportunity for you to join our Emotional Well-being Home in Leicestershire as a Senior Residential Children & Young People's Worker on a full-time, permanent basis.

About the Service

Barnardo's, the UK's largest children's charity, works in partnership with Leicestershire County Council to provide high-quality residential care for some of the county's most vulnerable children and young people.

Our homes provide safe, stable and nurturing environments for children and young people aged 8–18 who may have experienced trauma, disrupted attachments, loss, neglect, or other complex life experiences. We support a small number of young people at any one time, enabling us to provide highly individualised care and build meaningful relationships that promote emotional wellbeing, resilience, confidence and independence.

Our practice is rooted in trauma-informed, attachment-aware and relationship-based approaches. We believe every child deserves to feel safe, valued, listened to and supported to achieve their full potential.

Whilst this home will be your primary base, flexibility is required as there may occasionally be opportunities to support other residential services across Leicestershire.

About the Role

As a Senior Residential Children & Young People's Worker, you will play a key role in supporting the day-to-day operation of the home and providing leadership during shifts.

Working alongside the management team, you will help create a safe, nurturing and structured environment where children and young people can thrive. You will act as a positive role model, supporting colleagues to deliver high-quality care and ensuring that safeguarding remains at the centre of practice.

The National Youth Agency is looking for an Events Manager.

Events Manager
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full-time - 37 hours per week
Salary: £35,000 per annum (dependent on experience and qualifications)
Location: Home-based in England with occasional travel for meetings, workshops, and team activities. Head Office is in Leicester.

What we do

As the national body for youth work, the NYA has a dual function. We are the professional statutory and regulatory body (PSRB) responsible for qualifications, quality standards, and safeguarding for youth work and services in England. In line with our charity mission and aims, we also champion youth work through research, advocacy, campaigns, and programmes.

We work in partnership and believe in collaborative leadership, listening to youth workers and the youth work sector so that we can understand their needs and respond to the challenges they face. We are ambitious for youth work and for young people and integrate youth voice and influence across our work.

Role Purpose

To manage the planning, delivery and continuous improvement of our most high-profile annual events, including, but not limited to, UKYP, Peer Network Conference and a number of our annual policy events. The postholder will deliver multi-stakeholder events to high standards, on time and in budget, identifying opportunities to develop and improve events year on year.

The Event Manager plays a pivotal role in organising the events and activities that will provide young people, from across the United Kingdom, the opportunity to collaboratively engage in the democratic process through the UK Youth Parliament Programme.

This role involves working closely with the UK Youth Parliament team and our partners to support the effective organisation, communication and delivery of the UK wide events and activities.

The Event Manager will work closely with the Policy team, Communications team and Programme Management teams.

Key Responsibilities

As our Events Manager, you will:

• Plan, organisation and on-site delivery of regional and national events, including residential and single-day conferences, networking events and a House of Commons sitting.
• Project management of all event elements including budgets, logistics, health and safety, safeguarding, attendees, AV and delegate communications.
• Be responsible for selection and management of all event suppliers including accommodation, equipment, AV and logistics.
• Oversee venue and supplier management
• Act as first point of contact for all delegates where appropriate to the event
• First point of contact for internal and external stakeholders
• Work with our finance team to ensure event budgets are managed closely and events are delivered in budget
• Report for each event during event planning phase and developing comprehensive post-event reports which
• Any other reasonable duties to support the successful deliver of the events.

Why Work for NYA?

• NYA operates as a people-focused organisation, prioritising the well-being and needs of its employees.
• NYA offers an exceptional flexible working approach which encourages our team to balance professional responsibilities with their personal life.
• A remote based team, spread across England, fostering inclusivity and diverse talent. Despite geographical distances between team members, NYA maintains a highly motivated and connected team through the optimisation of digital tools.
• NYA is committed to supporting the continual personal and professional development of our team and helping them achieve their ambitions.
• We provide 25 days leave plus 8 days, life assurance scheme, 5% employer pension contribution and a comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme via Spectrum.life with unlimited specialist support available to all NYA employees.

Closing date: 23:59 Friday 26th June 2026.
N.B. We would encourage you to apply as soon as possible as we may close the vacancy early if we receive a sufficient number of suitable applications.
Interviews: Week commencing 13th July (subject to change)

Interested?

If you would like to find out more, please click the apply button. You will be directed to our website to complete your application for this position.

The National Youth Agency is an equal opportunities employer.

At NYA our inclusive culture means that we embrace individual differences and understand that we need a diverse team to achieve our organisations mission.

We wish to recruit candidates from all backgrounds to ensure our team reflects the rich diversity of the communities we serve. We encourage applications from anyone regardless of disability, ethnicity, heritage, gender, sexuality, religion, socio-economic background and political beliefs but we particularly welcome applications from global majority candidates and those from other minoritised ethnic groups in the UK as they are currently underrepresented in our team.

Please note: We use AI detector software, so applications or CV’s with high levels of AI generated content may be disregarded. We understand that AI tools can offer support to candidates who have learning differences, which is why we will accept applications with some AI assistance.

No agencies please.

Reporting to: Accommodation and Facilities Manager

Location: Baca office, Loughborough, England. The role will require regular travel to other locations where Baca’s services are delivered

Hours: 37.5 hrs per week including some evening and weekend hours may be required

Salary: £26,750 per annum

Overall Purpose

To provide maintenance support to the organisation, ensuring premises are maintained at a standard that will serve the mission of Baca. This will include properties across Loughborough and 2 office sites.

Duties Responsibilities

• Organise and conduct required maintenance at all Baca sites. The below list is not exhaustive but some of the below skills will be required to fulfil the role; General Plumbing; bathroom and kitchen plumbing repairs, blocked toilets & sinks etc, Painting and Decorating, Basic carpentry skills, Meter Reading for electricity and gas meters, Fire Testing; routine testing of smoke and CO alarms.
• To become familiar and actively use the Baca’s maintenance management system which aids the reactive and planned works across all sites.
• Communicating with contractors, residential workers and landlords as required, ensuring repairs and maintenance is conducted when planned.
• Administering quarterly checks, quarterly cleans, health and safety requirements and annual servicing such as: PAT testing and Gas safety on properties and reporting issues for follow up.
• Working alongside the Premises Manager, administer the Health & Safety checks on all Baca properties including the offices, to ensure regulatory requirements are met and associated paperwork is completed.
• Support in the setting-up and closing down of properties and rooms between moves.
• Administering the setup and set-down of rooms for young people moves between Baca properties, ensuring the rooms are ready for new young people.
• Ensuring the office and car parks are clean and tidy, ensuring visitor experience is positive, professional, welcoming, friendly and helpful.
• Assist the Premises Manager and Finance Manager with year-end Fixed Assets verification.
• Supporting with other administrative activities in line with the team needs.

General:

• Play an active and supportive role within the organisation.
• Take ownership of files allocated, ensuring they are up to date and stored correctly.
• Maintain strict confidentiality in relation to work undertaken and ensure all confidential material is stored according to Baca’s Confidentiality statement and Data Protection Policy.
• Embrace the Vision and Values of Baca and reflect this in working practice.
• Treat all staff and young people fairly and without prejudice, in line with Baca’s Equality and Diversity policy.
• Be aware of the correct procedures for dealing with any suggested incidences of safeguarding concerns and to follow them, in line with Baca’s Child, Vulnerable Adult Protection & Safeguarding Policy.
• Adhere to all Baca’s policies and procedures.

Personal Specification

Baca is looking for someone who can help the organisation with the housing maintenance and day to day function of all properties it houses young people in and our offices. The successful applicant will be motivated and passionate about the work that Baca does and the young people in our care. They will be very organised and practical, able to get on with tasks that need doing on a day-to-day basis, managing a varied and busy workload. They will be very approachable and enjoy working on their own as well as part of a team and supporting others. The successful applicant will need access to transport as the role requires travel between the properties that Baca manages including the transportation of items to the properties.

The successful applicant will have a personable style that is in line with Baca’s vision and values. Someone who is supportive, approachable, responsible, reliable and personable.

Qualifications/Knowledge/Experience

• Good knowledge/understanding of the building and maintenance process.
• A good awareness of general health and safety, especially regarding maintenance work.
• Ability to use computers well, with experience in Microsoft Office and on-line email systems.
• Experience of prioritising workload to meet competing deadlines.
• Advocate of customer care including experience of dealing with a range of client queries/concerns in a professional and understanding manner.

Skills/Abilities

• Experienced in the use of hand tools and familiar working with timber, basic plumbing materials, furniture building, decorating and gardening.
• Excellent personal organisation with a high attention to detail.
• Ability to manage a number of tasks at any one time.
• Self-motivated to complete a varied workload.
• Working well as part of a team is essential.
• Good interpersonal skills and able to interact well with staff, contractors and visitors to the office and other properties.
• Ability to work to deadlines and respond in a flexible way to the changing demands of Baca’s work.

Other Expectations

• Appointment is subject to a satisfactory DBS check.
• Applicants to have a genuine concern for and commitment to asylum seekers/refugees, young people and UASCs in particular.
• Ability and commitment to work at all times within a framework of confidentiality and anti-discriminatory practice.
• Commitment to work within the aims, values and ethos of the organisation.
• Ability to have flexibility with working hours to facilitate occasional out of office hours access to accommodation for contractors.
• Holds a full, clean driving licence and has access to transport.

How to Apply:

If you are passionate about making a difference in the lives of young asylum seekers and meet the above criteria, we would love to hear from you. Join us in making a positive impact and helping young people build a brighter future!

Applicants will be shortlisted and interviewed as and when applications are received.

Please note: We do not offer sponsorship for this role.